


Fine Day

by Lint



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-25
Updated: 2017-02-25
Packaged: 2018-09-26 19:28:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9918842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lint/pseuds/Lint
Summary: Veronica doesn't judge. Never has, and promises herself she never will, with Betty.





	

It's a strange feat to try and accomplish.

 

Running for your life and attempting to stay quiet while doing so. Betty and Veronica tear through the halls of Riverdale High on the balls of their feet, fleeing from a madman, both girls telling themselves not to look back over and over in their minds.

 

Suddenly Betty pulls at Veronica's elbow, throwing her off balance enough to where she plows into the blonde, the pair crashing to the floor of a tiny maintenance closet. Betty's hand is quick to cover Veronica's mouth, holding a finger to her own, the brunette immediately nodding with understanding.

 

Both their eyes widen at the sound of footsteps approaching, respective breathing patterns so hushed it's practically non existent. Veronica is glad Betty knows every nook and cranny of campus, and can only hope their stalker doesn't possess the same knowledge. Their shoulders press together, each silently pleading with whatever deity will listen, that the steps in the hallway don't stop on the other side of the door they're hidden behind.

 

Veronica has never been so scared in her entire life, and that almost makes her laugh instead of cry. Entire life. As if sixteen years is anything at all. Still, it's far too young to be a check mark on a psychopath's hit list.

 

Seconds tick. Each one feeling like eons, but thankfully the steps make their way in another direction.

 

Betty's hand is still held firmly in hers, having not let go this entire time, the act causing a rise of honestly within herself.

 

“Betty,” she whispers. “If we don't make it-”

 

“We're gonna make it,” Betty insists.

 

She sounds so sure Veronica wants nothing more than to accept it as fact, but fear overrides the assurance, inciting doubt within her heart.

 

“Yeah, but if we don't, I need you to know-”

 

“I know,” Betty interrupts.

 

“Betty I'm trying to tell you that I-”

 

Betty brings Veronica's hand to her lips, and presses the faintest of kisses against her skin.

 

“You don't have to.”

 

Veronica can't help but balk a little, having thought she'd been so discrete with her feelings.

 

Betty eyes the door, then looks back to her.

 

“When we get out of here,” she offers. “You can tell me, if you still want to.”

 

Veronica nods.

 

If we get out of here, she doesn't say.

 

/\

 

One strange side affect of surviving attempted murder, is that Cheryl just kind of attaches herself to the two of them. An unexpected bout of graciousness on her part. For saving her life. For avenging her brother by the dispatching of his killer. Though she still refers to them as Ellen and Portia for their newfound coupling, the sharpened point her tongue once possessed has considerably dulled.

 

She sits next to Veronica at lunch, quietly picking at a salad, offering no comment that B and V's arms are linked together. She's scratching at her stomach again, Veronica notices from the corner of her eye, the large scar that slashes across the redhead's abdomen forever itching to a girl where perfection is measured in beauty.

 

No more bikini's for Cheryl Blossom, or midriff baring outfits of any kind, not that she wore much of them in the first place. Veronica reaches down to Cheryl's wrist, the girl letting out a quiet gasp not realizing she was doing it again. Wasn't worth a bullet, she'd later confess. That's what the killer had told her. She offers a small smile of thanks and goes back to her lunch.

 

Archie, Jughead, and Kevin sit on the opposite side of the table, idly talking about this and that. A line between the group drawn in formica, gender, and experience. Sure the boys on one side know all about what happened to the girls on the other. But every detail shared, along with every secret kept, will preserve that line there without ever meaning to.

 

“Penny for your thoughts,” Betty states with a bump to her shoulder.

 

“Hmm?” Veronica hums in reply. “Oh. No thoughts, really. Just spacing out I guess.”

 

“See Juggy?” Betty teases. “She had no interest in your burger.”

 

Jughead is still not convinced.

 

“Maybe she should just focus elsewhere, anyway,” is his retort, before taking a comically aggressive bite.

 

Cheryl scoffs, but Veronica laughs, while Betty ducks her head to hide a smile.

 

/\

 

“Why are we still here?” Veronica asks quietly, as they crouch into a corner of the gym, just behind the bleachers. “If horror movies have taught us anything, it's to _not_ run in circles with a murderer on the loose.”

 

Betty peers cautiously around the corner, seemingly satisfied they're okay for the moment, before looking back to her friend.

 

“They have a gun Ronnie,” she admonishes softly. “Which means if we try to run across the field, or through the quad, they'll have a wide open shot at both of us. We stay in the school buildings, there are things to hide behind, obstacles in the way of a bullet.”

 

Veronica nods her agreement, her stomach dropping slightly that none of those little details occurred to her, but still somewhat relieved that Betty has taken charge of this impossible situation.

 

“Besides,” Betty continues. “The entire Sheriff's department is raiding Thornhill as we speak, so no one is coming to our rescue.”

 

“How long do you think we'll have to hold out?”

 

“Not sure. But if we keep moving, keep hiding, we'll be less of a target don't you think?”

 

Veronica does think that, and goes along fluidly when Betty tugs her along when it's time to move again. They manage to clear a path down two separate hallways before hearing something, a small cry from the other side of the door to the science lab.

 

“Trap,” Veronica whispers, but Betty disagrees.

 

“Listen closely,” she says. “Too soft, too shallow. I think... I think someone's dying.”

 

Veronica's eyes widen.

 

“What do we do?”

 

Betty starts toward the door.

 

“Betty,” Veronica warns.

 

“We have to help,” she insists. “Or at least try.”

 

They ease open the door quietly as possible, not seeing the source of sound at first, crouching around the lab stations until they come across Cheryl with her midsection ripped wide open and left to bleed out on cold linoleum.

 

/\

 

She looks so peaceful when she sleeps, Veronica muses.

 

They lie face to face on Veronica's bed, heads propped on the same pillow, Betty off in dreamland with hands tucked into her chest. You'd never think it, looking at her. Like this or anytime during daylight hours, that such an angelic face has so much darkness hidden away inside.

 

Veronica doesn't judge. Never has, and promises herself she never will, with Betty. It's because of that darkness she's even alive to contemplate such things, with the prettiest girl she's ever known tucked between her sheets.

 

She leans forward to press a whisper soft kiss against Betty's hands, ignoring the flash of memory that paints them red, clutching madly at a pair of black handled scissors schools always seem to have. Betty asserts that she doesn't remember doing it, and having witnessed such disassociation with her before, Veronica believes it.

 

It's almost a point of envy, that she could forget what happened, because no matter how hard she may try Veronica simply can't. Jason Blossom's killer, their would be murderer, felled by a dozen stab wounds to the chest. Delivered with shocking savagery by the sweetest, kindest girl in the whole damn world.

 

It would have been a dozen more, had Veronica not managed to catch Betty's arm, the killers body already on the ground but the blonde had fallen to her knees with it to keep delivering blows. Veronica's eyes pinch shut as she tries to will the flashbacks away. She doesn't want to see this now. Hear Betty's terrifying guttural scream as she reigned all those death blows down.

 

The vision passes a few deep breaths later, and when she opens her eyes there lies her angel just within reach.

 

“I know you think it's sweet,” Betty offers suddenly. “But watching me sleep is actually kind of creepy.”

 

Veronica chuckles softly.

 

“Sorry,” she mumbles.

 

Betty's arm moves to pull Veronica closer, the brunette gasping in surprise at the ease in which she's moved, kissed promptly on contact and sighing contently.

 

The nightmares will come later. They always do. But Veronica lets herself revel in moments like these as often as she gets them.

 

/\

 

“Oh my god, Cheryl!” Veronica exclaims in that odd whispered scream.

 

The redhead tries to reply, blood bubbling through her lips, with glassy eyes staring blankly upward.

 

“No don't,” Veronica says to her. “Don't try to talk.”

 

“This looks bad,” Betty says, examining the wound, hands hovering just above it but careful not to touch.

 

“How bad?”

 

Betty's eyes catch Cheryl's, still unfocused, but not to the point where she doesn't understand her own mortality in the moment.

 

“Like she's gonna die in the next minute or so if we don't do something.”

 

Veronica immediately pulls out her phone, practically useless during this whole ordeal, but she's dialing 911 anyway. Betty rushes to pull the pale pink sweater over her head, drapes it across the gash, and applies pressure.

 

Cheryl groans with discomfort, but Betty doesn't ease up, as Veronica begs for an ambulance immediately but warns dispatch to be careful. They're not alone.

 

“Don't worry Cheryl,” Betty offers. “You're not going to die today.”

 

The redhead tries to say something in return, but more blood rises up, as her head lurches to the side spitting out what she can.

 

“S-still...”

 

“Ssh,” Veronica hushes her with a hand hovering just above Cheryl's face. “Try not to talk. The ambulance is on it's way.”

 

“Here...”

 

Betty and Veronica share a terrified look.

 

“What?”

 

“S-s-still, here...”

 

Metal scrapes along the tile, Betty's attention pulled to a pair of scissors held weakly in Cheryl's hand, the wounded girl trying to pass them along. She takes them without question, just in time to hear the hammer of a gun being cocked back, the barrel hovering just behind Veronica's head.

 

/\

 

Veronica sits in the waiting room, flipping through a six month old copy of Vogue, not really reading it and barely even glancing at the photos. Must be a slow day in mental health, she thinks. The receptionist has been glued to her phone the entire time she's been here. Sighing, she tosses the magazine back on the table she got it from, and glances toward the door to the doctor's office before pulling out her own phone.

 

After what happened, Betty was subjected to a seventy-two hour psych evaluation, the results of which nearly put her in the same home as Polly. Only the alternative of extensive therapy kept her out, hour long appointments thrice weekly, one of which is currently happening beyond the door on the other side of the room.

 

Alice, along with her many other failings as a mother, can't even be here to support her daughter after such a heinous incident. Bury it down and pretend nothing ever happened, the Cooper family motto. Twenty minutes, and fifteen Instagram likes later, Betty appears through the doorway.

 

Veronica is on her feet with arms open, instantly filled by a tearful blonde, Betty's eyes never dry after a session. She doesn't offer condolence, or assurance, just holds onto to her girl as long as she needs. Only a moment or two, normally, the tears run dry and that's the end of it until the next appointment.

 

Betty pulls back, still sniffling, forever grateful that Veronica is here every time.

 

“You can tell me,” she says. “If you still want to.”

 

Veronica smiles, brings both hands to Betty's cheeks.

 

“I love you,” she replies. “I'm in love with you.”

 

Betty kisses her.

 

“Yeah,” she accepts with a smile. “Me too.”

 

 


End file.
